Recording the mbira of Southern Africa : a case for establishing empirical acoustic-based recording methods of traditional instruments

Dissertation (MMus (Music Technology))--University of Pretoria, 2023.For this research an experiment was done in an attempt to establish a method for recording the mbira of Southern Africa. This work is important because it seeks to address some gaps in knowledge pertaining to recording practices of indigenous instruments. The idea was to bridge the gap between ethnomusicology and music technology to improve studio practices for recording African musical instruments, specifically the mbira. An experiment was carried out to determine how the acoustic properties of the mbira together with well-known standard recording techniques could assist in providing practitioners with information about best-practice for recording such an instrument. A recording technique to record the mbira was established. A mixed methods approach was implemented so that both qualitative and quantitative data could be obtained. This included the collection of quantitative data using investigative techniques and conducting interviews with participants to collect qualitative information. A summary of the findings may be found in the final chapter of this dissertation.MusicMMus (Music Technology)Unrestricte

How do women say ‘I’ online?

Creative Submission: My digital narrative, Seed, seeks to re-work conventional notions of ‘character’ and ‘plot’ in fiction, via a the polyphonic first person narrative of an unnamed 1980s Ophelia who is searching for ways to represent unspoken and unspeakable experiences of girlhood in the late twentieth century. Coming of age in 1988, a year in which misinformation about AIDS, Chernobyl and CJD peaked, Seed’s narrator is haunted by fears of infection, aware that bodily experience (breathing, eating, sex) could lead to illness or even death. Living in isolation in the raw industrial countryside outside a new town, the poverty of narratives available to her render Seed’s narrator, like Shakespeare's heroine, multi-vocal with borrowed voices. In her case these are garnered from fashion magazines, pop songs, media reports, and the words Ophelia speaks in Hamlet—but, as Gertrude says of Ophelia, she is ”incapable of her own distress". Presented as a digital app, seed-story.com, (with later iterations as a multi-vocal performance, and a print book), Seed grows into a rhizomatic structure which—aware of its experimental forbears including Julio Cortazar, B. S. Johnson and Shelley Jackson—can be read via a number of different paths. Time and space are collapsed and expanded into a nonhierarchical, explorable reading ‘landscape’, decentring ideas of 'author' and ‘character’ via a patchworked narrative inspired by post-Lacanian feminist and queer writing on subjectivity (especially Irigaray and Wittig). In keeping with its examination of restriction, the script of Seed is tied by a hidden linguistic constraint. Critical Submission: My critical thesis, /A USER MANIFESTO is a polyvocal investigation of the constraints and opportunities of constructing a female persona on the digital screen, for those constrained by aspects of female identity offline. Particularly concerned with the experiences of motherhood and gendered precarity in the arts and gig economy, I draw especially on the work of Berlant, Butler and Ngai to examine the poetics of commodifiable (female) gender-presentation in creative acts of self-identification online, taking in (amongst other iterations of online subjectivity) the digital speech act, the gif, the meme, the 'dead' site, and the blog-novel. My work draws direct comparisons between hierarchical structures in programming languages and vocabulary (chiefly Javascript) and digital Boolean logic, and offline constructions of the ‘female’. It asks questions about the nature of digital writing and reading for women via mimetic strategies of identification and exemplarity. Proceeding by example, it takes the form of moral vignettes, thought experiments, diary entries and coded scripts, both digital and social, taking into account the history of cyber-feminist thought and creativity to create a manifesto for those who use, and are used by, digital femininity

SEED <woman sitting in front of a screen>/<girl online>A USER MANIFESTO

Creative Submission: My digital narrative, Seed, seeks to re-work conventional notions of ‘character’ and ‘plot’ in fiction, via a the polyphonic first person narrative of an unnamed 1980s Ophelia who is searching for ways to represent unspoken and unspeakable experiences of girlhood in the late twentieth century. Coming of age in 1988, a year in which misinformation about AIDS, Chernobyl and CJD peaked, Seed’s narrator is haunted by fears of infection, aware that bodily experience (breathing, eating, sex) could lead to illness or even death. Living in isolation in the raw industrial countryside outside a new town, the poverty of narratives available to her render Seed’s narrator, like Shakespeare's heroine, multi-vocal with borrowed voices. In her case these are garnered from fashion magazines, pop songs, media reports, and the words Ophelia speaks in Hamlet—but, as Gertrude says of Ophelia, she is ”incapable of her own distress". Presented as a digital app, seed-story.com, (with later iterations as a multi-vocal performance, and a print book), Seed grows into a rhizomatic structure which—aware of its experimental forbears including Julio Cortazar, B. S. Johnson and Shelley Jackson—can be read via a number of different paths. Time and space are collapsed and expanded into a non-hierarchical, explorable reading ‘landscape’, decentring ideas of 'author' and ‘character’ via a patchworked narrative inspired by post-Lacanian feminist and queer writing on subjectivity (especially Irigaray and Wittig). In keeping with its examination of restriction, the script of Seed is tied by a hidden linguistic constraint. Critical Submission: My critical thesis, /A USER MANIFESTO is a polyvocal investigation of the constraints and opportunities of constructing a female persona on the digital screen, for those constrained by aspects of female identity offline. Particularly concerned with the experiences of motherhood and gendered precarity in the arts and gig economy, I draw especially on the work of Berlant, Butler and Ngai to examine the poetics of commodifiable (female) gender-presentation in creative acts of self-identification online, taking in (amongst other iterations of online subjectivity) the digital speech act, the gif, the meme, the 'dead' site, and the blog-novel. My work draws direct comparisons between hierarchical structures in programming languages and vocabulary (chiefly Javascript) and digital Boolean logic, and offline constructions of the ‘female’. It asks questions about the nature of digital writing and reading for women via mimetic strategies of identification and exemplarity. Proceeding by example, it takes the form of moral vignettes, thought experiments, diary entries and coded scripts, both digital and social, taking into account the history of cyber-feminist thought and creativity to create a manifesto for those who use, and are used by, digital femininity

The Experience of Meditation and Healing in Practitioners of the Wim Hof Method

The practice of meditation for the purpose of increasing mental clarity, health, and healing has grown steadily over the past 50 years or more. While meta-analyses and literature reviews of hundreds of studies have shown that individuals who meditate improve neuro-biopsychosocial functions and recover from illness, few studies have examined these benefits within specific systems of practice. This qualitative study explored the experience of meditation and healing in adults who have trained in the Wim Hof Method (WHM). Transpersonal psychology and placebo theory served as the conceptual framework of this research. Narrative analysis was used to guide data collection and analysis. The narrative interviews of 10 participants who experienced the WHM were transcribed and analyzed using both structural and thematic strategies. The results indicated that WHM practitioners experienced neuro-biopsychosocial and emotional well-being through the use of breath, cold-immersion, and/or meditation. All participants reported profound experiences involving symptomatic reduction and/or the healing of maladies, as well as transpersonal/transcendental experiences that transformed their lives. Future research is encouraged to study the experience in more diverse populations (gender, nationality and age), and to explore participants’ worldviews prior to, during, and following the practice of the Wim Hof Method. Quantitative research assessing effectiveness and the influence of individual difference factors is recommended. Given the benefits associated with engaging in the WHM, as well as its low cost, ease of access and simplicity, this method could be deployed across a variety of venues to inspire social change

The readiness of primary trained graduate teachers to effectively manage classrooms in Kimberley schools in Western Australia

This study is unique in that it investigates the nature of the relationship between classroom management strategies, neophyte teachers and Indigenous students, in remote area classrooms. Given that the student population and teaching conditions in remote schools is usually significantly different from the demography of the students encountered in pre-service practica, the purpose of this research is to determine the effectiveness of course-specific classroom management strategies with Indigenous students located in a specific remote region of Western Australia. This study was undertaken in both Department of Education and Catholic Education Office schools within the Kimberley region of Western Australia. This region was selected as over 65% of the total primary-aged student population identifies as being Indigenous and just over 33% of all teachers placed in this remote region are graduate teachers. Both the Department of Education (WA) and Catholic Education Office (WA) spend significant resources providing support and training for beginning teachers in the areas of Indigenous education programs and classroom management strategies each year. This research is a qualitatively-based interpretive study that uses the ethnographic tools of semi-structured interviews, classroom observation and a functional behaviour analysis to collect the data. Data was collected in-situ on two separate occasions and grounded theory methodology was used to code and compare the data, enabling the emergence of a new theory termed ‘cultural frame-switching’. Cultural frame-switching involves demonstrating an understanding of and insight into the lives of the students and the cultural mores of the remote community. Research findings suggest that cultural frame-switching is the foundation upon which the effectiveness of classroom management strategies rests. The study found that the utilisation of classroom management strategies per se was not as significant in engendering compliance as was cultural frame-switching. That is to say, the mastering of otherwise laudable strategies was insufficient to induce compliance. The findings of this study have the potential to assist in targeting the cultural training of both pre-service and beginning teachers thus potentially reducing attrition rates in remote locations. Recommendations are made regarding the preparation of pre-service teachers to better equip them for remote teaching upon graduation. Such recommendations are aimed at assisting teachers to learn about the local Indigenous culture prior to establishing any classroom management protocols

Micropipette Manipulation for the Production and Characterisation of Microparticles in Biomaterials Discovery

The use of microparticles for biological applications is increasing, and with it, the need for specialised microparticles. While one of the major advantages of microparticles is the ability to fine-tune properties, such as chemistry and morphology to best serve an application, achieving this usually relies on lengthy trial-and-error processes. Micropipette manipulation techniques have proven to be valuable tools in studying cell mechanics, protein dehydration and material characterisation. The techniques permit the study of simple and complex multicomponent systems from an alternative perspective to traditional techniques. Utilising these techniques droplets and particle forming systems can be studied on the microscale and in real time. Thus, providing improved understanding of microparticle formation and aiding in particle design and optimisation. The hypothesis for this work was that micropipette manipulation techniques can be employed to understand and improve formation of bio-instructive microparticles. In this thesis, micropipette manipulation techniques were used to study a series of microparticle systems. To better enable this application, methods were developed to improve or extend existing analysis practices. The new routines allowed for a reduction in measurement error to the limit of detection, improved efficiency, and increased processing capabilities. Additionally new methods were developed for analysing droplet microstructure. A comprehensive assessment of the impact of the most widely utilised microparticle materials, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and poly(D, L lactic acid) (PDLLA), on solvent/water interfaces was conducted using the static equilibrium interfacial tension method. The polymers were treated as additives to two solvent/water combination base systems (dichloromethane (DCM) and ethyl acetate.) From this assessment empirical equations were derived for calculating the interfacial tension for given concentrations of the polymers. The maximum interfacial tension for DCM/water to remain as stable drops during particle formation was determined as approximately 11.1 mN m-1. Droplet dissolution was assessed for both base solvents with a range of PDLLA/PVA concentrations. The diffusion coefficients for the base solvents in water were 17 ± 3.8 x10-6 cm2 s-1 (DCM) and 10.1 ± 0.28 x10-6 cm2 s-1 (ethyl acetate). Negligible change was seen for the addition of polymer to either phase. Comparisons to the Epstein-Plesset model and the activity-based model for dissolution were conducted for both solvents for the range of PDLLA concentrations concerned. Dissolution followed the curve of the Epstein-Plesset model but deviated from the expected final size given by the activity-based dissolution model. A series of novel, bio-instructive surfactants were assessed for their use in particle formation through the polymerisation of monomer droplets produced using droplet microfluidics. The effectiveness of the different surfactants was determined using static equilibrium interfacial tension measurements. Different core monomers, polymer architecture and hydrophilic and hydrophobic components were considered. Optimum concentrations of surfactants were taken into droplet microfluidics for optimised particle production. Flow maps were generated mathematically using the optimised compositions and showed good agreement with the stable regions found experimentally. Investigations of material transfer between the monomer drop and the surroundings showed unusual behaviour by the monomer for which a mechanism is proposed to explain such behaviour. A dual surfactant system for enabling the production of biodegradable microparticles using droplet microfluidics was investigated and the concentrations optimised for performance and application criteria. The particles produced using PDLLA in ethyl acetate formed secondary droplets both inside and on the surface of drop as dissolution occurred. By varying the concentrations of surfactant, core polymer and continuous phase saturation, the morphology of these particles could be manipulated. Using EGPEA-mPEGMA it was possible to generate a topography, reproducible between single particles studies and high volume microparticle production, that could be controlled by adjusting surfactant concentration. The studies presented here demonstrate the improved understanding of selected microparticle formation systems through the application of micropipette manipulation techniques. Characterisation of novel biomaterials was conducted which in turn allowed the optimisation of bio-instructive microparticles through droplet microfluidics

Micropipette Manipulation for the Production and Characterisation of Microparticles in Biomaterials Discovery

The use of microparticles for biological applications is increasing, and with it, the need for specialised microparticles. While one of the major advantages of microparticles is the ability to fine-tune properties, such as chemistry and morphology to best serve an application, achieving this usually relies on lengthy trial-and-error processes. Micropipette manipulation techniques have proven to be valuable tools in studying cell mechanics, protein dehydration and material characterisation. The techniques permit the study of simple and complex multicomponent systems from an alternative perspective to traditional techniques. Utilising these techniques droplets and particle forming systems can be studied on the microscale and in real time. Thus, providing improved understanding of microparticle formation and aiding in particle design and optimisation. The hypothesis for this work was that micropipette manipulation techniques can be employed to understand and improve formation of bio-instructive microparticles. In this thesis, micropipette manipulation techniques were used to study a series of microparticle systems. To better enable this application, methods were developed to improve or extend existing analysis practices. The new routines allowed for a reduction in measurement error to the limit of detection, improved efficiency, and increased processing capabilities. Additionally new methods were developed for analysing droplet microstructure. A comprehensive assessment of the impact of the most widely utilised microparticle materials, poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and poly(D, L lactic acid) (PDLLA), on solvent/water interfaces was conducted using the static equilibrium interfacial tension method. The polymers were treated as additives to two solvent/water combination base systems (dichloromethane (DCM) and ethyl acetate.) From this assessment empirical equations were derived for calculating the interfacial tension for given concentrations of the polymers. The maximum interfacial tension for DCM/water to remain as stable drops during particle formation was determined as approximately 11.1 mN m-1. Droplet dissolution was assessed for both base solvents with a range of PDLLA/PVA concentrations. The diffusion coefficients for the base solvents in water were 17 ± 3.8 x10-6 cm2 s-1 (DCM) and 10.1 ± 0.28 x10-6 cm2 s-1 (ethyl acetate). Negligible change was seen for the addition of polymer to either phase. Comparisons to the Epstein-Plesset model and the activity-based model for dissolution were conducted for both solvents for the range of PDLLA concentrations concerned. Dissolution followed the curve of the Epstein-Plesset model but deviated from the expected final size given by the activity-based dissolution model. A series of novel, bio-instructive surfactants were assessed for their use in particle formation through the polymerisation of monomer droplets produced using droplet microfluidics. The effectiveness of the different surfactants was determined using static equilibrium interfacial tension measurements. Different core monomers, polymer architecture and hydrophilic and hydrophobic components were considered. Optimum concentrations of surfactants were taken into droplet microfluidics for optimised particle production. Flow maps were generated mathematically using the optimised compositions and showed good agreement with the stable regions found experimentally. Investigations of material transfer between the monomer drop and the surroundings showed unusual behaviour by the monomer for which a mechanism is proposed to explain such behaviour. A dual surfactant system for enabling the production of biodegradable microparticles using droplet microfluidics was investigated and the concentrations optimised for performance and application criteria. The particles produced using PDLLA in ethyl acetate formed secondary droplets both inside and on the surface of drop as dissolution occurred. By varying the concentrations of surfactant, core polymer and continuous phase saturation, the morphology of these particles could be manipulated. Using EGPEA-mPEGMA it was possible to generate a topography, reproducible between single particles studies and high volume microparticle production, that could be controlled by adjusting surfactant concentration. The studies presented here demonstrate the improved understanding of selected microparticle formation systems through the application of micropipette manipulation techniques. Characterisation of novel biomaterials was conducted which in turn allowed the optimisation of bio-instructive microparticles through droplet microfluidics

Person-Centered Outcome Metrology

This unique collection of chapters from world experts on person-centered outcome (PCO) measures addresses the following critical questions: Can individual experiences be represented in measurements that do not reduce unique differences to meaningless uniformity? How person-centric are PCO measures? Are PCO measurements capable of delivering the kind of quality assured quantification required for high-stakes decision making? Are PCO measures likely to support improved health care delivery? Have pivotal clinical studies failed to deliver treatments for diseases because of shortcomings in the PCO measures used? Are these shortcomings primarily matters of precision and meaningfulness? Or is the lack of common languages for communicating outcomes also debilitating to quality improvement, research, and the health care economy? Three key issues form an urgent basis for further investigation. First, the numbers generated by PCO measures are increasingly used as the central dependent variables upon which high stakes decisions are made. The rising profile of PCO measures places new demands for higher quality information from scale and test construction, evaluation, selection, and interpretation. Second, PCO measurement science has well-established lessons to be learned from those who have built and established the science over many decades. Finally, the goal in making a PCO measurement is to inform outcome management. As such, it is vitally important that key stakeholders understand that, over the last half century, developments in psychometrics have refocused measurement on illuminating clinically important individual differences in the context of widely reproduced patterns of variation in health and functioning, comparable scale values for quality improvement, and practical explanatory models. This book’s audience includes anyone interested in person-centered care, including healthcare researchers and practitioners, policy makers, pharmaceutical industry representatives, clinicians, patient advocates, and metrologists. This is an open access book